Ice Men
Picture: C
Sound: C+ Extras: D Film: C
With the failure of The Gay New Wave to produce
consistently serious or important cinema, made more obvious buy the commercial
and critical success of the more mainstream Brokeback Mountain, Thom
Bell’s Ice Men (both 2005) is even more obviously problematic than
before Ang Lee’s film arrived. A group
of old friends, all male, get together for a reunion and maybe to get some
hidden feelings out in the open. Of
course, some of these will be homosexual, but the screenplay by Michael Lewis
MacLennan has so many issues and complications that even the performances at
their best cannot save it.
One couple is explicitly gay. Another forming could be, but there are non-sexual issues
unresolved, much of which is simply because of an idiot plot in which a simple
conversation would have ended this film faster than its 108 minutes. Matching that false set of barriers is the
way sexuality is treated, male physicality in general as well as any gay
issues. There are teases throughout,
some partial nude shots that seem like gay baiting more than visual narrative
storytelling. For a film about adult
men, the physicality and any instances of sex are so limited as to be shockingly
infantile and intelligence insulting enough to offend heterosexuals. The wind-up is five talented actors are
wasted in a convoluted mess that writes (sometimes literally, with no puns
intended) checks its ass cannot cash.
As compared to Lee’s film, it is thought-police homosexual melodrama.
The letterboxed 1.85 X 1 image is softer than usual and
has some substandard Video Black to be found all over the place. I give credit to cinematographer Gavin
Smith, C.S.C., for an often-naturalistic looking film that gives a sense of
place. Maybe if this were
anamorphically enhanced, we would see fewer problems with the transfer, but
that is not the case. The Dolby Digital
2.0 Stereo is supposed to at least have Pro Logic surrounds, but they are
hardly present and that mode cuts into the fidelity of the recording. Except for a trailer, there are no extras.
- Nicholas Sheffo
